


Heartstrings

by DustyForgotten



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Amputation, Hux is Not Nice, M/M, Manipulation, Self-Mutilation, Skywalker Hand Loss, Tattoos, Unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 14:13:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13812879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DustyForgotten/pseuds/DustyForgotten
Summary: Heartstrings are stronger than sinew, but spiderweb can strangle them both.





	Heartstrings

**Author's Note:**

> Remember when I first posted this, and said I could have made it so much worse? I made it worse.

He falls in love too easily. The matching marks that litter his body are proof of this weakness: the system of squiggles and dots of a childhood crush, the delicate design curling up his neck from his first relationship in adolescence, every echo of emotions getting the best of him, made flesh. He’s carved them out, one by one, but the marks persist even through scar tissue.

There are those among the Order that guard their marks like security codes, under high collars and wrist-cinched gloves, and there are those with stains of their affections brandishing the face, that forgo dispensed concealers despite the mark that matches that of a lover, somewhere, somewhen. Lovers long since lost, more often than not.

Kylo Ren dragged his nails through the bare planes of General Hux’s back, kissed up naked thighs and left bruising across his chest. He’s untouched, almost infantile in his skin’s blankness. He’s a mystery— a miracle of circumstance.

“Have you really never been in love?” Kylo asked while Hux laced his boots efficiently, with as much sterile practice as he doled commands, as he made love.

“Don’t be daft,” he sniped in reply, and left.

When next Kylo reached out to take the air from someone’s very lungs, lines and angles had already etched into the back of his hand.

Was sex really enough to negate all his training? Was he such a slave to affection? He meditated, resigned himself to celibacy, and seared his hand on his sabre. The scar split to let the mark show through, an eternal symbol of his failures, but the penance had been paid.

“Heartstrings are stronger than sinew, you know,” Hux hissed, grip about Kylo’s wrist, made to watch the insults that fall from Hux’s lips without tracing them by his fingertips, “you won’t be free of me that easily.”

Nothing touches his hallowed skin but Kylo and the armor of his greatcoat, and nothing brands him but the fading bruises of sex, meaningless— for him, at least. Kylo traces the hickeys around his own collarbone, gouges his fingers in until he can’t feel the searing of his mark that aches to have Hux so distant as his personal chambers.

“I know you love me. It changes nothing. You’re still a Jedi Killer, Ren—”

“You still burst with ambition.”

His teeth flash before falling to Kylo’s ear. “If you ever want that favour returned, you’ll help.”

He runs Snoke through with his own sabre, back of his hand burning under gloves, and the girl— that worthless scavenger— helps. She leaves in tears, torn by compassion and pessimism and the Force, and leaves her own delicate mark on the top of his foot, only to be seen in his most vulnerable nudity. By no one, now.

He grips the railing of a secluded command overlook with his left hand, sabre ignited in his right, and severs it. There are no attachments in this new regime.

One cannot escape emotion. He harnesses power from his pain, channels the Force through a hand that burns despite servos where nerves used to run, will follow the girl to her death out of no more than spite.

Supreme Leader Ren commands with fervor, and General Hux sneers around deference; Kylo follows his anger across a galaxy, and Hux wins the war. He does not drop to his knees— even when named Grand Marshall, even on the throne, rocking in Kylo’s lap. Ren doesn’t dare to undress before a man that quietly arranged the means of his disposal on more than one occasion, but Hux splays his hand on Kylo’s chest, like he knows where his mark has migrated.

Heartstrings are stronger than sinew, but spiderweb can strangle them both.


End file.
